I I I went for a facial, brow wax and tint and a face massage at Sabrina Beauty French Esthetic on Vincent Street in Victoria, Central London a day before my pre-wedding photo shoot in London.

The salon is situated in a residential area and her salon is actually her flat on Vincent Street. You can see products everywhere, and they are all from reputable brands like Chanel, Tom Ford, La Mer, L’occitane, etc. Sabrina seems like a very nice and you can tell she is French straight away with her strong accent. I have always love French style beauty.

The facial was done quite thoroughly as there is extraction included, helping you to get rid of any zits and unclog your pores. The massage was lovely with the right amount of pressure. I find not many beauty salons provide facial massage in the UK, but in Asia, this is a very common service, this is one of the reasons why I picked this salon as well.

All in all the service is Okay.

BUT! There is this big BUT. I purchased a sun cream from Sabrina, after she recommended it to me twice during the facial. So I was like OK, I really want to give this product a try as I feel that I can trust her professionalism. So I agreed to buy the suncream. When I asked about the price I was quite shocked she said the sun cream is going to £170! I commented that is expensive and she goes on to show me the brochure of the product and tells me that this is a salon exclusive brand and it is clinically proven with results. So I bite the bullet and bought it, thinking with all these expensive branded products in her flat maybe this is just a brand that I am unfamiliar of. I can do some research later about the ingredient.

The shocking truth is, after I got home I was going to write a blog about this experience and also about the cream that I bought there. I was shocked to see that numerous online pharmacies sell this exact same sunblock, it’s not like what she said “salon exclusive” and the real shocker is that they are only £20!

So I was like “What? I paid 8 times more than average from the salon???” I called Sabrina straight away and politely told her what I found online and I emailed her a screen cap of the online pharmacies’ price as well. She claimed that what I found is fake (Excuse me?! Fake? All of them?). I politely asked for a refund and she said it is not possible. She can only give me store credit to go back to her salon for another facial. I then said I don’t live in London thus it would be no use for me to get store credit, also I wouldn’t want to go to her salon anymore, it is just morally wrong to over charge a customer by 8 times.

At last, she agreed to refund the difference for me or I can return the product to her and get a refund. However, I was flying back home in 2 days and wouldn’t have time to go to her salon again because I was in London just for the photo shoot.

Luckily, I booked the treatment through Treatwell so I contacted them, their customer service agent kindly helped me to liaise with them. But they said they can only help so much as to give some pressure to them to refund the money to me. As it is not treatment related and the product wasn’t bought through their website. I was promised I would get my money back in 2 weeks, but that ended up took me 6 weeks and 4 other phone calls to get my money back.

Anyways, just to let you ladies know if you do go to Sabrina’s salon just try to avoid purchasing products from her or do your fair amount of research before purchasing any products there.